Guillermo
Del Toro has dropped out as director of the two coming films
of The Hobbit, but will continue as screenplay co-writer. [DK]

Harlan
Ellison is full of surprises: 'Last Dangerous Visions,
for the first time ever in e-book format (and soon to be in paperback),
is the latest installment in E-Reads' initiative to bring back more than
thirty major works by Harlan Ellison.' (E-Reads) But
this
web page is otherwise about the original Dangerous Visions,
and Last may just be a typo. [Rapidly fixed, but we kept a
screenshot: see last paragraph.]

Neil
Gaiman, who charges high speaking fees out of sheer
self-defence, was not best pleased to be used as a 'political
football' after accepting $40,000 to talk at a Minnesota library.
(Which needed to use up special funding that couldn't be spent on books
or salaries.) The money all went to charity, but the Minneapolis
Star Tribune decided this shock horror payment was front-page news.
Neil: 'Nobody from the Star Tribune tried to contact me or my assistant
or agent for any quotes on this, which I find a bit depressing, given
that they have my email and phone number from dozens of previous
interviews.' [BB] So it goes.

Muriel
Gray learned the peril of telling anecdotes, after joking in a
Fantasycon 2004 interview about some chap's complaint to HarperCollins
that her horror novel The Ancient (January 2000) was
suspiciously similar to his fantasy (unpublished). Her comment 'So
obviously he was a nutter' clearly rankled, but not as much as her claim
that his book had been written after hers appeared. Since she didn't
mention his name – Geoff Widders – this was hardly
defamatory; still, he went to the Small Claims court, asking not for
damages but for an official ruling that Muriel Gray had told a fib and
should jolly well be ashamed of herself. The case moved to High Court
and then Court of Appeal, ultimately being thrown out in December 2009
with costs against Widders. He feels a vast sense of injustice and has
created a website about the whole affair (hewasanutter.com),
plugging this on literary messageboards: the British Fantasy Society's
because of Fantasycon, Stephen King's because The Ancient had a
King cover quote, and (at Facebook) Gray's home-town football team
Glasgow Rangers. [JS] Oh dear.... [Later: Mr Widders now complains
(and complains, and complains) that this attempt to summarize a long
story is "distorted". By all means visit his site, as linked
above, and judge for yourself.]

Diana
Wynne Jones, after much consultation with her husband and
specialists, has decided to abandon chemotherapy (which is serving only
to make her feel very ill indeed) and resign herself to whatever may
follow. Her senior oncologist fears she has 'months rather than years',
but we all hope that – as once or twice before – Diana can
still surprise the medical profession. May the good luck return. [via
CB]

Jonathan
Lethem is moving from New York to California, to take up the
Roy Disney Chair of Creative Writing at Pomona College (held by David
Foster Wallace until his death in 2008). [AIP]

Ian
McEwan's climate-change novel Solar won the Bollinger
Everyman Wodehouse prize for comic fiction at the Hay Festival. He said:
'I have been surprised there aren't more novels [about it]. It's clearly
begun to have an impact on our lives already and it has huge human
consequences, on a small scale, on a private level and on a geopolitical
level.' (Guardian,
28 May) [JY] The Guardian could have cited heaps of past
sf about anthropogenic climate change, from George Turner's The Sea
and Summer (1987, aka Drowning Towers) to Kim Stanley
Robinson's 'Science in the Capital' trio (2005-7), but the invisible
genre stayed invisible – apart from Michael Crichton's contrarian
State of Fear.

J.
Neil Schulman, whose 1979 sf novel Alongside Night
features 'the collapse of the American economy due to massive government
overspending',
announced
on 21 May that he plans a copyright infringement suit against the
US government for stealing his plot points and using them in real life.
Co-defendants will include the Federal Reserve Bank, the European Union,
the International Monetary Fund, General Motors, and the country of
Greece. Sample smoking gun: 'I have Europe issue a common currency in my
novel called the "eurofranc" – the European Union then
goes and issues the "euro".' [LP] Is Schulman a little bit,
ahem, widdershins; or is this just a tongue-in-cheek publicity ploy?

Norman
Spinrad, unable to eat owing to a blocking tumour, had
intestinal surgery on 20 May and is pleased: 'I have to tell y'all that
it went better than 100%. The surgeon in effect did the job he wanted to
do after much more chemo, took out the tumor and a suspicious lymph
node, didn't take my whole stomach. Thanks to y'all for your prayers of
all kinds and degrees.' (Facebook, 21 May) He should be out of hospital
and recovering at home by now (1 June). Get well soon!

Jane
Yolen reports: 'Someone asked a children's book publisher
recently at a panel what was the most popular trend in picture books
these days. He thought carefully for a long moment, then said, "Pink
and sparkly covers." I think I shall go and drown myself
forthwith.'

As
Others See Us. Restoring the lost footage of Metropolis
has also miraculously rescued it from the taint of sf: 'The cumulative
result is a version of "Metropolis" whose tone and focus have
been changed. "It's no longer a science-fiction film," said
Martin Koerber, a German film archivist and historian who supervised the
latest restoration and the earlier one in 2001. "The balance of the
story has been given back. It's now a film that encompasses many genres,
an epic about conflicts that are ages old. The science-fiction disguise
is now very, very thin."' (New York Times, 4 May, sent by
dozens of you) As Andy Sawyer wearily commented, 'That's apart from the
futuristic setting, the dystopian cityscapes, the videophones, the vast
machines and the robot, I guess.'

Publishers
& Sinners. Angry Robot, the year-old HarperCollins UK sf
imprint, is becoming an independent publisher (same Nottingham office,
Marc Gascoigne's team and all) backed by Osprey Publishing, best known
for military history and the Shire Books heritage titles.

As
Others See Our Young.Teenaged son: 'I'm the only one
of my friends who hasn't lost his virginity.' Narrow-eyed mother:
'We've seen your friends, and trust me, Pimples, Braces and Beam Me Up
Scotty are not getting any.' (Desperate Housewives, Channel 4,
12 May) [MPJ]

R.I.P.John Birchby (1930-2010), long-time UK fan, the last 1940s White
Horse attendee still to be a regular at London first-Thursday meetings
in 2010, died on 29 May after a short illness; he was 79. [BA] John was
a dedicated Ansible correspondent.
 Phyllis Douglas (1936-2010), US former actress whose
1960s credits included episodes of Batman and Star Trek,
died on 12 May; she was 73. Her first cinema appearance, in Gone
with the Wind (1939), was at the age of two. [MPJ]
 David Durston (1921-2010), US writer-director best known
for his satanic-hippies-get-rabies horror film I Drink Your Blood
(1970) – he also wrote scripts for the tv sf anthology series Tales
of Tomorrow – died on 6 May aged 88. [AIP]
 David Everitt (1953-2010) freelance writer and co-editor
of Fangoria with Bob Martin from 1981 to 1985, died on 7 May
aged 57. [JHB]
 George Ewing (1945-2010), author of technical articles
and a number of sf stories beginning with 'Black Fly' (1974 Analog),
died on 18 May aged 64. [BH]
 Frank Frazetta (1928-2010), legendary US fantasy artist
who after early work in pulps and comics rose to fame with film posters
and (from the 1960s) book covers, died after a stroke on 10 May; he was
82. [HB] His best-known images were inspired by Robert E. Howard's Conan
and various Edgar Rice Burroughs novels; he won the Hugo as best
professional artist in 1966, the corresponding World Fantasy Award in
1976, WFA Life Achievement in 2001, and three Chesley Awards.
 Martin Gardner (1914-2010), US polymath famed for his
long-running 'Mathematical Games' column in Scientific American
(collected in 15 volumes) and for many books and articles attacking
pseudoscience, died on 22 May. [MB] Gardner was 95 and still publishing
new work, such as his piece in the March/April Skeptical Inquirer.
He contributed mathematical puzzles to Asimov's 1977-1986; his
sf and fantasy stories are assembled in The No-Sided Professor
(1987); he wrote extensively about favourite fantasy authors, especially
L. Frank Baum, Lewis Carroll (see The Annotated Alice and The
Annotated Snark), G.K. Chesterton and Lord Dunsany. Gardner was a US
national treasure.
 Robert Gary (1920-2010), US script supervisor for the
original Star Trek and also ST:TNG, ST: Voyager
and ST: DS9, died on 3 May aged 90. [AIP]
 Dennis Hopper (1936-2010), noted US actor/director whose
genre credits (though not his most acclaimed work) included The
Twilight Zone, My Science Project (1985), Super Mario
Bros. (1993), Witch Hunt (1994), Waterworld (1995),
Space Truckers (1996) and Land of the Dead (2005), died
on 29 May. He was 74. [SG]
 Peter Keefe (1953-2010), US writer/producer of Widget,
the World Watcher (1990) and other animated tv sf series, died on 27
May. [SFS]
 Peter O'Donnell (1920-2010), UK comics writer and
novelist who created Modesty Blaise – both as an Evening
Standard comic strip (1963-2001) and as a novel sequence opening
with Modesty Blaise (1965) – died on 3 May; he was 90.
[GW] O'Donnell also contributed notable scripts to the science-fantasy
strip Garth.
 Lynn Redgrave (1943-2010), UK actress whose genre
credits include Lion of Oz (2000) and Peter Pan (2003),
died on 2 May; she was 67.
 Jeanne Robinson (1948-2010), dancer and choreographer,
wife and collaborator of Spider Robinson, died on 30 May after weeks of
palliative care for no longer treatable cancer. [DB] Their 1977 Analog
story 'Stardance' won both Hugo and Nebula awards, and grew into the
novel Stardance (1979); sequels were Starseed (1991) and
Starmind (1995). All sympathy to Spider and family.
 Joy K. Sanderson (née Goodwin, 1923-2010), active
in UK fandom for several years before her 1960 break with Vince Clarke
and emigration to America with Sandy Sanderson, and in US fandom
thereafter, died on 22 April; she was 86. [JH]
 Kei Sato (Keinosuke Sato, 1928-2010), Japanese actor
whose best-known (in the West) genre roles were in the 1984 Godzilla
remake and the supernatural films Onibaba and Kwaidan,
died on 2 May aged 81. [PT]
 Randolph Stow (1935-2010), Australian-born author whose
novels include the post-holocaust Tourmaline (1963) and the
fantasy The Girl Green as Elderflower (1980), died on 30 May
aged 74. [JC]
 Sharon Webb (1936-2010), US author and nurse who based
sf on her medical experience, died on 29 April aged 74. Her books
include The Adventures of Terra Tarkington (1985) and the Earth
Song trilogy. [NSFCN]

As
Others See Us II. George Nolfi, director of The Adjustment
Bureau, explains that this film – though based 'very loosely'
on Philip K. Dick's sf story 'Adjustment Team' (1954) – is Not
Science Fiction: 'Sci-fi to me conjures up lasers and spaceships and
time travel. This movie is told very realistically.' (Entertainment
Weekly, 23 April) [MMW]

Random
Fandom.George Locke is closing his sf bookshop off
the Charing Cross Road, planning to be 'out of Cecil Court at the end of
August (lease expiry; too old to sign up for another five years).' [R]

More
Awards.Compton Crook (first novel): Paolo Bacigalupi,
The Windup Girl.
 National Movie Awards, voted by the general public, all
went to genre work. The Twilight saga won three: Fantasy Movie,
New Moon; Performer, Robert Pattinson; Most Anticipated Movie,
Eclipse. Also: Best Family Movie, Harry Potter And The Half
Blood Prince; Special Recognition, the entire Potter franchise;
Action/Thriller, the steampunk Sherlock Holmes; Breakthrough
Movie, The Time Traveller's Wife. The remaining award, Screen
Icon, went to the very sci-fi Tom Cruise. [MPJ]

The
Dead Past.72 Years Ago. Maurice K. Hanson had a
vision of the future: 'The Government will set about the business of
annexing the moon to the British Empire, for it is doubtful whether at
that date there will have been any great steps towards the cultivation
of a spirit of internationalism, and no one dare impute that the first
men on the moon will be other than British!' (Tomorrow
7, 1938) [RH]

Outraged
Letters.Pete Young reports from the front: 'Three
quarters of the Bangkok fandom I know about (ie, myself, wife and son)
hightailed it out of the city before the curfew was announced. The
building in which I did a teacher training course last year, opposite
the now-destroyed Centreworld, was also firebombed, and the massive
cloud of tyre smoke that hung over the city as we left was vaguely
apocalyptic. / The remaining quarter of Bangkok fandom that I know of,
ie. Somtow Sucharitkul, stayed put and has become a bit of an unofficial
media star again via Facebook.... His best comment: "If the
redshirt leaders had read science fiction, they'd have known the
consequences of 'creating a monster'."' (25 May)

Unsolicited
Shrug. A Washington Post article on books read by past
US presidents led to a flood of suggestions for what President Obama
should read. Top choice, after the Constitution and the Bible: Ayn
Rand's massive Atlas Shrugged. 'He needs to read [it] at least
ten times,' insisted one cruel taskmaster. (Washington Post, 25
April) [KM]

As
Others Quote Us. Conservative MP David Davies showed his sf
erudition before the election, citing 'one of Heinlein's Laws which says
that the only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to
venture a little way past them into the impossible.' (Guardian)
[R] Oops.

The
Dead Past II.50 Years Ago, Kenneth F. Slater brought
good news: 'ORDERS ARE NOW BEING TAKEN by the publishers
for Professor J.R.R. Tolkien's promised new work, provisional title,
THE SILMARILLION, which recounts the earlier history of
The Ring. The publishers still can't give a date or a price for the
work, but this acceptance of orders is a step forwards.' Only 17 more
years to wait! In the same column, KFS expressed his disapproval: 'A new
low is achieved by the latest Beacon Book (Galaxy Selection – or
should it be Salaction?), Philip Jose Farmer's FLESH
which out-does such things as R.L. Finn's CAPTIVE ON THE FLYING
SAUCERS for undisguised pornography and sadism. The additives to
some of the reprint Beacon titles have been pretty erotic, but so far as
I read this one is pure sexology. The time would seem to be ripe for the
much rumoured Spicy Science Stories.' (Skyrack
20, June 1960)

Thog's
Masterclass.Crossing the Jordan Dept. 'Suddenly he
pressed the looking glass to his eye as a woman galloped a tall black
horse.' 'Worry [...] ate inside him like a ferret trying to burrow out
of his middle.' 'Perrin shut out the rest, no easy task, with his ears.'
'That old woman reminded Sevenna of a landslide plunging down a
mountain.' 'He sounded like a bumblebee the size of a cat instead of a
mastiff.' 'The Ajas sent to the Keeper whatever dribbles from their own
eyes-and-ears they were willing to share.' (all Robert Jordan, A
Crown of Swords, 1994) [AR] 'Her eyebrows climbed as she directed
her gaze back to them, eyes black as her white-winged hair, a demanding
stare of impatience so loud she might as well have shouted.' (Robert
Jordan, The Path of Daggers, 1998) [AR] 'The tea had gone cold,
but honey exploded on her tongue.' 'After a moment, his chin moved, the
vestige of a nod.' 'Loial's ears trembled with caution, now.' (all
Robert Jordan, Crossroads of Twilight, 2003) [AR]
 Shapeshifter Dept: The Final Frontier. '"Ling!"
Meg snapped at one point. "Human beings have two ears, and
each is at the side of the face. That's better."' (H.J.
Campbell, Another Space – Another Time, 1953) [BA]
 Third Eye Dept. 'There was a long silence while Kitty,
still with arms tightly folded, studied him from between narrowed eyes.'
(John Dickson Carr, The Devil in Velvet, 1951) [PB]

Editorial.
The Encyclopedia of SF
contributor list still contains mysteries which baffle even the editors.
Who is the DN who co-wrote the 1993 edition's entry on Danish author
Sven Holm? Who provided a couple of new television entries (including
seaQuest DSV) for the 1995 CD-ROM and signed them JCB? Neither
set of initials can be found in the official key to contributors. Look
on my works, ye mighty ...

As
Some of Us See Us. 'Why did science fiction fans of both sexes
tend to be so overweight? Why did they tend to be pear-shaped and look
strange about the eyes? Why did masses of them crammed into convention
hotel room parties exude such clouds of anti-sexual pheromones?' (Norman
Spinrad, He Walked Among Us, 2002) [JL]